Japan Marketing News

Mitsubishi introduces sharp innovation in mechanical pencils

Leave it to Japanese designers to bring superb engineering and creativity to even the most everyday products. This time it's mechanical pencils.

One of the most annoying problems encountered by pencil users is stroke bloat. One minute you're writing or sketching with the most delightfully precise lines, the next minute every stroke looks fat and dull. It's because the tip of your pencil flattens as you write.

One of the most attractive features of mechanical pencils is that they're less prone to stroke bloat than their wooden counterparts. But they're not immune.

Until now.

Coca Cola Japan brings "functional" Coke to market

The Japanese market is so inundated with functional drinks that it had to happen eventually. Finally, Coca-Cola Japan has introduced a vitamin-fortified Coke drink. Coca-Cola plus vitamin was launched earlier this month and is now making its way into shops around Japan. Known as Diet Coke Plus or Coca Cola Light Plus in European markets, Coca-Cola plus vitamin is a Diet Coke* variant that apparently provides you with 81% of your daily requirement of vitamin C—with no calories. Check out the Japanese website here.

* Known as "No Calorie Coca-Cola" in Japan

Glico looks to fatten margins with thinning Pocky

In recent years, Japanese consumers have grown increasingly interested in nutrition and body weight, thanks in part to the attention the media has given to Japan's increasing incidence of metabolic syndrome, and the recent measures the Japanese government has instituted to help combat the problem.

In the marketplace, not only have we seen the broad introduction of diet beers, malt liquors and canned cocktails, soft drink companies have also gotten into the game with various teas and functional drinks that either prevent the absorption of fats or claim to help people to lose weight.

Now the chocolate manufacturers are about to get on board the anti-metabolic syndrome bus too.

Apple iPhone coming to Japan on July 11

Interested in the iPhone in Japan?

From an Apple press release that went out yesterday:

Softbank (SBM) and Apple® today announced that the highly anticipated iPhone™ 3G will be available in Japan on July 11. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast* as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.

Read the press release in its entirety here.

Previous Japan Marketing News post on the iPhone in Japan here.

Effective Japanese TV ads: ANA

This ANA ad targets older Japanese who have both the time and money to travel. Many over 60 still have a very romanticized view of "things international" and overseas travel, and a good proportion are enthusiastic fans of Jazz, as well. While some younger Japanese might consider the use of the New York backdrop and African-American-band-playing-typical-Jazz-standard as somewhat hackneyed, it probably strikes just the right note (ouch) with the intended audience.

While the effectiveness of the branding is questionable (after all, it's pretty easy to substitute any other airline logo into this ad—nothing about it is truly specific to ANA), I give this commercial high marks for its ability to capture your interest and keep you engaged. On that measure, it outperforms most other airline ads, which are excruciatingly predictable, and forgettable.

Fanta Japan shakes up the beverage market

I discovered this new and unique Coca-Cola Japan product the other day in the vending machine near my home. It's called Fanta Furufuru Shaker.

In some ways it's reminiscent of those jelly drinks marketed by Weider Japan. If you're not familiar with them, imagine a semi-soft version of Jello that's drinkable.

Where Coca-Cola Japan has added a twist is in adding carbonation that's activated by shaking the can.

The first mouthful feels a bit like Jello, but then the carbonation hits you, producing the sensation that you're actually eating your soda.

Less adventurous souls and the conventionally minded (in other words, adults), may find this off-putting.

But Japanese kids are going to, ahem, eat it up.

And you are simply not going to believe the TV ads.

Fanta Japan regularly produces fairly "out-there" commercials, but you won't want to miss the ones currently posted on their website. After you reach the top page, click on TVCM, then play the video that comes up in the main screen.

In particular, keep a close eye out for this character, whose can shaking technique is going to stimulate a lot of chatter in some quarters.

Starbucks Japan brews up new approaches

A couple of months ago, the international papers were buzzing about Starbucks' woes in the U.S. Analysts have been worried that the American market has been saturated, and this has been reflected in the stock price, which is down almost 50% versus last year.

The situation is somewhat different here in Japan. The market is not quite saturated and the brand continues to grow. Nonetheless, a number of threats loom on the horizon and the brand isn't going to be enjoying a cakewalk going forward.

Besides the ongoing encroachment of competing chains like Doutor, Excelsior, Tully's and Seattle's Best, McDonald's has also joined the fray in earnest by launching its McCafe shops which feature a broad lineup of specialty coffee drinks. Additionally, the burger chain recently introduced a better quality brew called Premium Roast at its regular restaurants for just 100 yen per cup (about $1).

But that's not all.

Great Japanese train advertising: IKEA Japan

Congrats to IKEA Japan for generating some powerful buzz through one of the best "train jacking" ad campaigns I've seen in a quite a long time.

In Japanese advertising parlance, a "jacking" occurs when an advertiser purchases a substantial portion of all of the ad space available in a particular medium or within a geographic area (the term "jacking" is derived from the English word "hijack"). Most commonly it's seen on trains, when advertisers buy out the entirety of ad slots inside the cars, and often have tailor-made graphics or billboard-like posters placed on the exteriors too.

In this case, however, IKEA has really outdone itself by thinking outside the box. Why not leverage its expertise in interior design to deliver a genuine brand experience, rather than a mere barrage of posters and such? The company recently train-jacked Kobe' Port Liner Loop Line to celebrate the opening of its latest mega store in the city.

Take a close look (here, here, and here) and you'll see that IKEA has not only filled some of the standard ad frames with its own messages, it has replaced the train's standard window shades with those from its own stores, converted the seats to sofas with IKEA brand upholstery, and has added wall coverings in some cases, as well.

Naturally this approach is generating plenty of interest amongst those who've ridden this train. But better yet is the fact that this approach is new, and thus newsworthy, making it fodder for a number of traditional Japanese news outlets and plenty of blogs, as well.

Many thanks to Sue Sato and John Cathcart for tipping us off to this campaign (via the IKEA blog and Pink Tentacle).

Effective Japanese TV ads: Mr. Donut

Here's a cute little ad from Mr. Donut Japan that reaches consumers on a couple of levels.

A young man comes to visit his grandmother and brings with him a little gift to share with her—a box of Mr. Donut doughnuts. They sit down to enjoy the treat, and just when the man picks up a doughnut to take bite, the old woman stops him with an admonition, "don't be rude," and hands him a set of chopsticks. Then they go on to eat their snack together with traditional Asian utensils.

On the one hand, the commercial goes for an easy laugh that appeals to both teens and adults, who'll find it funny that the unsophisticated grandmother thinks good decorum means never eating with your fingers, and senior consumers, who may remember a time when mass- produced doughnuts were new to Japan, and still had enough mystique to cause confusion about the best way to eat them.

On the other hand, the ad serves as a gentle reminder that doughnuts are a nice little gift to bring on a family visit (Japan has a complex gift-giving culture), and thus broadens the brand's appeal to purchase occasions that extend beyond personal consumption.

To see the commercial in its entirety, click here.

Shochiku takes the Next step in movie promotion

It's not at all unusual for movie studios to build buzz for forthcoming films by holding movie screenings. What is unusual—but may in the future become commonplace—is to conduct some of those screenings virtually.

One company that's already dabbling in this area is Japan's Shochiku Studio. Wanting to generate excitement for the Hollywood action thriller Next (starring Nicholas Cage) which it is distributing, Shochiku has announced that it will premiere the film to a select audience to be chosen by lottery—and that the film will be shown to them by transmission to their cell phones!

It turns out that the gimmick serves a couple of purposes. First, the studio hopes that the cutting-edge promotion will generate plenty of anticipatory chat on social networking sites and blogs, and second, that it will draw attention to additional cell phone video content that's available through Dogado, a Shochiku subsidiary that specializes in producing full-length, made-for-cellphone movies and other content (ex. see Clearness).

Given the recent proliferation of 1-seg equipped cell phones with high resolution displays, and the introduction of fixed price, unlimited bandwidth usage packages by cell carriers, a number of companies have been working on new video-for-cell phone offerings. We're only going to see more experimentation of this type going forward, and it's fine by me since I'm about to pick up one of the latest portable handsets myself.

By the way, the keitai premiere of Next will be held on April 21. The movie opens in Japanese theaters at the end of the month.